VIK, Iceland — An Icelandic volcano brought much of the world’s air travel to a halt. And then it brought the world to Iceland.
Few outside this island nation had heard of Eyjafjallajokull — and even fewer could pronounce it — when the volcano erupted in April 2010 after two centuries of silence, spewing an ash cloud that closed Europe’s airspace and grounded millions of travelers.
Iceland responded to its global notoriety with savvy self-promotion, sparking a tourism boom to a country whose landscape of hardened lava, gushing geysers and steaming hot springs has a stark beauty that’s like nowhere else on Earth.
So the prospect of a new eruption brings a mix of trepidation and anticipation.
“We are kind of waiting for it,” said Thordis Olafsdottir, who runs the tourist office in Vik, a village at the base of Katla, a volcano that recently began rumbling after decades of quiet.
“It has been almost 100 years since it erupted,” she said. “It is ready.”
Like many Icelanders, Olafsdottir has a matter-of-fact attitude to life on this unpredictable island, whose hazards include earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, avalanches and floods, as well as volatile North Atlantic weather that can bring rain, sleet, hail, snow and sunshine in one day.
Iceland is home to 32 active volcanic sites, and its history is punctuated with eruptions, some of them catastrophic. The 1783 eruption of Laki spewed a toxic cloud over Europe, killing tens of thousands of people and sparking famine when crops failed. Some historians cite it as a contributing factor to the French Revolution.
Most other volcanoes remained largely a local threat — until Eyjafjallajokull (ay-yah-FYAH’-lah-yer-kuhl) blew its top in April 2010. Aviation authorities closed much of European airspace for five days out of fears volcanic ash could damage jet engines, and the phones at Iceland’s Department of Civil Protection started ringing off the hook.
“News agencies that we didn’t even know existed — countries we didn’t know existed — were calling us,” said the department’s Detective Chief Inspector Rognvaldur Olafsson. “We were even getting phone calls from the public, and emails: ‘You have to do something about this volcano. Can you make it stop?’“
Iceland was briefly infamous as the country that stopped the world. But tourism authorities — realizing there’s no such thing as bad publicity — responded with a clever advertising campaign, creating TV and online ads in which Icelanders and visitors described how they were “Inspired by Iceland.”
News footage of lava-spewing craters helped make the country look cool and beautiful, with a hint of danger.
Suddenly, Iceland was hot. Some 1.8 million people — almost six times the country’s population — are expected to visit this year, up from half a million in 2010. They are an economic godsend to a country still scarred by the 2008 financial crisis, which collapsed Iceland’s banks and sent unemployment soaring. — AP
